


We'll Be The Lion-Hearted

by scorchedmint



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor/Descendant, Bulges and Nooks, Dreambubbles, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mushy, getting caught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 19:43:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorchedmint/pseuds/scorchedmint
Summary: Dying to find love. It was like something out of a shitty romance movie, but you found yourself in the position of the main protagonist. And perhaps your life was only filled with the temporary joys that youth could provide you, of small successes and frilly tea parties, but death was a much more accepting place. It cradled you, comforted you, provided you the means with which to mature, even if only in mind.





	We'll Be The Lion-Hearted

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a billion years ago but never had a place to put it so............ take it  
> shoutout to all the vantas/leijon pairings tbh, i need to write a bunch of shit for them

Your name is Nepeta Leijon, and you're railing your flush-crush's ancestor.

Unintentionally, really. It was happenstance that you even met in the first place.

Wandering the dreambubbles was a fun, if tiring experience, only really requiring focus if you want to drift from bubble to bubble. This was something you did a lot; unwilling to stay in one place for too long, thirsty for adventure and exploration. You left behind your dead Equius and some of the other deceased trolls from your timeline, bored and itching for something new. You happened upon your dancestors once, and hung around only long enough to get a grip on their personalities, on what led them to death; to be frank, they were all kind of weird, so you left. Countless weeks you spent drifting like this, content with the impermanence of it all. Comforted, almost, by the certainty of your death in almost all timelines.

But this one- you don't know if you'll ever leave.

After leaving a particularly boring human bubble (not that you dislike the humans, even if they most definitely ruined your life), you find yourself drifting into the familiar land of your home planet. The dirt beneath your feet is rich in tone, littered with the local flora. You wondered who's this bubble was, because it was so familiar to your home that it was nigh indistinguishable. The twin moons were high in the sky, casting a green and pink glow unto everything.

It was so vivid that you wondered for a moment if you had not died at all, and instead had passed out after a long adventure, woken only by the gentle night breeze and the noise of the nocturnal fauna coming out to play. For a moment, you called out for your lusus, the scratchy tone of your voice pulling the chirp that usually had her bounding over to you, fur jostling with the wind. But she didn't come, because she was not here.

You swallow around the lump in your throat, standing up on shaking legs and feeling your wings flutter to compensate for your weakened knees. Here you wandered, flying over the forest that was so familiar to you, before you forced yourself to stop before you left the bubble. You hadn't seen hide or hair of anyone here the entire time- which was strange. You didn't make this bubble. It had to be someone else's.

In a soft movement, you hover to the ground, feet stirring up the dirt beneath your olive boots. A large cave is dug out of the mountain you landed near, mouth gaping wide and fire flickering against the stony walls. It drew you towards it, curious as to who would live here- another Nepeta, maybe?

But as you tentatively step into the cave, the firelight casting a brilliant amber glow to your skin, there sat a single, full-grown troll. He looks up at you as you enter, eyes as white as yours, horns rounded and short, and you take a moment to freeze. This mysterious troll does the same, some sort of recognition flashing across his features before he scrunches his brows up.

"You aren't my Disciple."

"You aren't Karkat."

* * *

 

You had sat with him, afterwards, the fire bringing a lively hue to both of your otherwise drab skins. He asks you how you got here, because he's never had visitors before and he's still not entirely sure where he is. You tell him, softly, that these are dream bubbles- places where the dead go to reminisce, courtesy of the Void's eldritch horrors. He seems to take it in for a moment, thinking hard about what that must mean for him.

"How long have you been here?" you ask, peering at him from your spot on the cold ground.

"Too long," he replies with a smile, pulling down his hood and you find yourself doing the same, removing your mask and setting it aside. Once again he was looking at your face with that same intense familiarity, and you ask if he's seen anyone like you before, another Nepeta? He still shakes his head and tells you that you're the first person to wander into his bubble.

"Then why... do you keep looking at me like that? Like you know who I am?" It comes out in a rush, your own confusion fueling your curiosity.

"You look just like her," and the way he says 'her', with reverence, makes a chill shoot down your spine. "My love."

It almost feels as if a cold spear was shoved through your gut, a myriad of emotions bubbling to the surface in an instant. You can't decide if this makes you want to cry or not- clearly this is _his_ ancestor, _his_ direct genetic parent, and he was- he was-

"Shh," you hear him say, having stood the moment you went silent to sit by your side, strong arm wrapping around your shoulders. You lean without thinking, head resting on his shoulder with your horn digging into his throat. He didn't seem to mind. "You must be her... her descendant. What was your symbol?"

You knew you could change your clothes at will; Meenah had taught you this when you spent time in one of her bubbles, and so you do- your green trench coat weighing down your shoulders and black top adorned with the symbol you've called yours your whole life. He pulls away from you for a moment to look before nodding, pain stretching his features as he brought you back in for a proper hug.

"You're my Disciple's descendant," and its a whisper on his tongue, curling somehow around your blood pusher and making you ache. "You look so much like her."

* * *

 

He tells you his title, Signless, as he tucks some of your hair behind your ear. You'd been talking for hours, discussing his death, his life- the things he accomplished and the wishes that never made it off the ground. It makes you hurt, somewhere deep inside of you, to hear his melancholy tones and to see his distant looks. You want to reach out, to touch him, but you keep your hands firmly at your sides, just resting against him.

The Signless asks who you meant when you told him he wasn't Karkat.

"Karkat is..." you pause. Its not as if you were particularly close, no matter how flushed you were for him. At best you were friendly acquaintances. At worst, you hardly knew each other. "He was someone I liked. We played a game together that got me killed."

You dont want to explain Sgrub to him, to tell him how you all had almost created a new universe for yourselves, how you had ascended to godhood only to die like a fool. Heroically. It still makes your hands weak to think about, even now. Signless doesn't press, but you find words tumbling out of your lips anyway.

"I was flushed for him, but I- we were never- I was never that close to him. He was... harsh, rude, but he was trying his best to be what he thought we needed. You look so much like him," a tear falls off your cheek, soaking into your clothes when it lands. "I can't believe he's your descendant- you're too nice."

He takes this in while you begin to cry, turning to hide your face in his chest, pushing your boundaries. He rubs soothing little patterns into your back, a low, cooing sound rumbling in his chest as he does his best to soothe you. "I'm sorry, dear. It is always hard to come to terms with something so serious." He wasn't mocking you, he wasn't weighing his judgement; just expressing his condolences in a gentle way, voice soft and soothing and silky. "Its his loss."

Shoulders shaking, your press yourself further to him, feel your horns dig into his collarbones, your hands gripping him so tightly that your nails bite into his flesh. The Signless lets you fall apart in his arms, allows you to sob into him like he's the only person who's ever shown you kindness. He is a rock, solid beneath you, unyielding in his comfort and his warmth. You can feel his hands wrap securely around you as he lifts you up, cradling you against him as he walks a bit further into the cave. You fall asleep before you know where you're going, exhaustion weighing your eyelids down.

* * *

 

Later, with the moons still high in the sky, you wake in a pile of fur, and for a brief, glorious moment, you think its Pounce. You can almost hear her purring, can almost feel the rough scratch of her tongue against your skin, almost smell her comforting scent. Nose buried in the fur, you know it isn't her. But you can pretend, for a moment, that this is your cave, and your lusus is waking you up for the evening hunt. A soft cough has your neck craning to see who has broken you from this daydream.

Oh.

Of course, its still him. The spitting image of your crush, fully grown and cooking something over the fire near the mouth of the cave. The pink and green light of the moons reflect off his skin, making him seem a bit otherworldly- and you think he might be, because he gives you a smile that makes your chest clench and a burning blush rise on your cheeks. If he notices, he doesn't say so, and you shrug out of your coat on your way over, carelessly dropping it to the ground behind you.

"Sleep well, kitten?" The pet name only makes you flush harder. "I hope I didn't wake you. I know we don't need to eat, but I made us something anyway."

His sweetness isn't lost on you, and you lower yourself to the ground, taking his offered food and wasting no time before digging in. You give him a big smile and he makes this little chuckling noise that goes straight to your blood pusher. "Thanks, its really good!"

"I hoped you'd like it," he grins, taking much calmer, slower bites. "My Disciple used to like her meat this way, too."

"What, mostly raw?"

It draws a snort from him, and he hides his face in his hand for a moment, trying to collect himself.

You think you might wind up staying here for a little longer.

* * *

 

It's hard to keep track of time in the dream bubbles.

You don't really remember how long its been since you arrived in the Signless's lonely little bubble, but you know that nobody else has passed through since you came here. When you asked if this bothered him, he simply told you that he was used to being alone by now.

"But," he added, leaning in to place a feather-light kiss on your cheek, "its been much nicer with you around."

"O-oh," is all you could say, catching his gaze. Which was difficult, because the both of you never filled your eyes back in with color, leaving them blank and lifeless; being able to tell where either of you was looking was based solely on sensation. It was something you felt on your back when you were stretching in the evenings, burning into your flesh and making heat rise in your thorax.

It was as if you were alive again when you felt his hands on you, pulling you to him, tender and soft and everything you've ever wanted.

His kiss made you feel like you were alive.

It was a chaste thing he did at first, simply pressing his lips to yours, full and a little chapped. He would pepper you with kisses every now and then, pulling away before it got carried away, giving you time and space. "I don't want you to rush," he says to you once, while you're pulling him to you in a rush of teeth and lips. "I don't want you to regret it. We have all the time in the world."

"I know."

The next time he kisses you, electricity shoots down your spine from the intensity. He had you in the pile during one of your cuddle sessions, flush against him as he presses forward, easing your mouth open with his tongue and tracing your fangs. A low whine you didn't know you could make made him groan into your mouth, you grip him tightly about the shoulders as he seats himself between your thighs.

"Please," you whimper, tugging on the hem of his cloak as he begins to pull away.

The Signless gives you a teasing smirk in response, leaning in to gently nip at the nape of your neck. He has you gasping, rutting against him, both of your bulges too confined, too distant, yearning to touch. You've torn rivers down his back, his beautiful mutant blood staining your fingers but he just moans, biting too-hard on your neck and painting your throat green. For a moment you are as high as you can possibly get; it was like flying, wind whipping your face and heart soaring-

The two of you cum in your pants, staining yourselves with the thick genetic material that soaks through your clothes.

* * *

 

"Can you change the dream bubbles at all?" he asks you one day, while you're both laying beneath the stars and watching the clouds looming overhead roll by lazily.

"I can add things if I can remember them clearly," You reply, lacing his fingers with yours and rolling over to lay atop him.

The Signless asks you to show him what your hive was like back before you died. You tell him you'd both have to leave the bubble, more likely than not, for something that grand. Without hesitating, he nods and smiles. "Let's go then."

* * *

 

You cart him off to a bubble you find in the Void, the giant sugar cube mountains of your Land greeting you as you pierce the weird, almost spongy layer that makes up the bubble. The Signless is holding onto your hip with his hand, tightly gripping you so he doesn't fall as you fly above the large saccharine deathtraps.

"This is where my hive went after we started Sgrub," you say, tone light as you spot a few imps having a tea party. "We had to build it up and up and up-" you point to a small spot up in the sky, where the copy+pasted parts of your hive taper off. "-until we reached the highest gate, so we could win and create a new universe for us to live in."

The unspoken 'but' hung in the air as you settled the two of you into the sugar, collapsing from exertion.

"But we um... we never won. There was something that went wrong in the universe we created. I'm not sure what- I didn't get to live long enough to see what happened."

He didn't offer any judgement, just a silent nod as he shifted, pulling you back to him. The sugar cubes rustled with the slight chiming noise they always made, familiar to you even now, in your death. The troll beneath you makes a soft, trilling noise that has you melting into his arms, feeling so overwhelmingly tired out of nowhere.

"Rest, dear one." The Signless kisses your cheeks. "You deserve it."

* * *

 

You don't stay long in that bubble, afterwards.

Showing him the base of your hive, he takes in his surroundings, grazing his eyes over your old shipping wall (un-updated), your pile of furs, your tablet sitting untouched on a small desk. He's interested in the tech, never having seen something like it before. You help him pull up the various applications on the device, most of them no longer working, but he seems thrilled to learn about what your life used to be like before you passed.

It makes you feel a little nostalgic, standing there in your grubhood home, looking at the reminders, the _remnants_ , of your innocence. But here the Signless was, looking at your past as if he's enraptured by the thought of such an existence, and it makes you feel a twinge of red in your pusher. You'd been feeling a lot of things for him, actually, but you'd been avoiding acknowledging it for a while, keeping your strange friend-with-benefits relationship just that.

He notices how distant you look, lost in thought, and runs his fingers through your hair to get your attention. Snapping to attention, you look up at him, and he says that its about time to go home.

_Home._

It makes you shake, the familiarity of his statement, of belonging in a place that you hadn't ever felt welcome. He gives you one of his shy, gentle smiles, and you melt, just shy of crying as you fly out of the bubble. As you look down at your Land one last time, flying overhead with the Signless at your side, you spot your Equius talking with a Karkat. Surrounded by his various Aradiabots, you could only hope they were becoming friends after all this time.

You don't see the Karkat look up at you as you fly away, don't notice him take off from your moirail in a rush of sugar and cubes.

You go home.

* * *

 

And it really was, now.

After getting back (and taking a well-earned nap together), you began to experiment with your shared bubble, bringing to the surface distant memories of all the fun and interesting things 'modern trolls' got to use. Your... friend was so interested in the television, and you would both spend long periods of time just watching old films, snuggled up on the memory of your old couch and covered in warm pelts.

You both critique the acting, sometimes terrible, other times so good that you're both crying, red and green tears streaming down your cheeks. You get to be there for the first time he tries grubcorn, and you consider yourself lucky as his face lights up, crunching upon the buttery snack as if he'd finally seen the metaphorical light.

As the movie ends, credits rolling, he gives you this look that would have made your pusher stop, had it still beat. It was warm, and loving, and he opens his mouth to say something to you, but you don't catch it the first time he says it. Patiently, he takes your hands in his, repeating himself.

"I love you, Nepeta."

Tears spring to your eyes and you aren't fast enough to catch them before they fall, green staining your cheeks as his hands tug you closer. You go willingly, press yourself against him, needy, begging. He kisses you fully, teeth nipping your lips, and you cry and cry and cry into him, letting him kiss you until your tears cease and your sobs turn to moans. He's pulled you into his lap, and he tells you his name, his actual one and not his title.

"I-I love you too, Kankri."

It was weird to say, because you had met the version of him where he was raised in a very different society, where he was taken as a ward of the planet and was worse off for it. But this wasn't him, it was the man you learned liked his hoofbeast sauteed with mushrooms and sourfruit- the troll who would draw over every cavern wall with you, who would roleplay with you when you felt nostalgic.

When you opened your eyes to look up at him, he smiled, eyes filled in with his mutant radiance. They were glistening with tears, and you reached up to kiss them away, filling your eyes in with their solid black, never having reached your final stage of pupation. Kankri lets out a happy little sigh into you, and you think that this- this is it. This is what you died for. Distant were the memories of your life before this, of ascending only to fall at the hands of an unstoppable enemy.

Dying to find love. It was like something out of a shitty romance movie, but you found yourself in the position of the main protagonist. And perhaps your life was only filled with the temporary joys that youth could provide you, of small successes and frilly tea parties, but death was a much more accepting place. It cradled you, comforted you, provided you the means with which to mature, even if only in mind.

Kankri was pressed to your side- or rather, you were squished up against his, nuzzling into his throat and letting his arms wrap around you tightly.

* * *

Pailing with him was like falling in love, and the thought of it alone rips a broken sob from your throat.

You feel him pause, bulge buried deeply in your nook, undulating and twisting slowing down until he's barely fucking you. You can't explain to him why you're weeping, green tears streaking tracks down the sides of your cheeks to wet your hair. He leans down to you, a warm coo on his lips as he presses his lips to yours wetly. Blood pusher aching in your chest, you flutter your nook around him, harsh sobs turned to gentle crying. Kankri nods, lifting up your legs to hoist over his shoulders, and you pull him to you, feeling the genetic fluid coating your thighs smear against his thorax.

Kankri smiles, praise on his lips, telling you how sweet you are, how soft. He trails sloppy, open mouth kisses on your ankles as he fucks into you, the sickening squelch a reminder of your blasphemy. It fills the room, echoing off the walls in such a vulgar way that your face is flushed with the deep green of your blood, his a bright red, the heat radiating off of your bodies making the room humid.

He pauses for just a moment, sitting up properly and pulling you with him, his writhing bulge finding your nook again easily, holding your hips as he bucks his own up into you. The slapping of your flesh would make your pusher race, but you're sweating and crying and telling him how much you love him, "Please, please, please don't stop fucking me, Kankri, please!"

"Oh, darling," he hums, teeth nipping along your collar, down your chest, and back up again. He leaves little olive bruises in his wake, the marks as much a possessive move as it was a passionate one. He couldn't keep his hands from wandering, gripping your ass tightly as he rolls his hips.

To your credit, you're also drawing thick groans from him, your lips buried against his neck as you suck and bite, hard, drawing blood and lapping it up as if it was a tasty treat. It draws heavy moans from his throat, ripping up from his chest as he hastens pace, the only noises between your bodies the lapping of flesh and your joined moaning. He lifts you fully into his lap, your legs squeezing tightly about his hips, as that wonderfully strange sensation tightens in your thorax. You nook flutters around him and he's burying his face into your neck, biting, kissing, begging for you to _cum please, Nepeta-_

Over his shoulder, you spot movement; your gut twists, as you spy someone who you hadn't honestly thought too hard about in what feels like ages-

Karkat makes eye contact with you for a second; you're cumming around his ancestor's bulge, hear him groan and grip your hips so tightly they'll bruise as he finishes after you, his genetic fluid stuffing your genetic pouch to bursting. You seedflap aches as it tries to close around him, his thick bulge chased out by the genetic material that simply wouldn't fit into your body. Mortified, you make a whine in the back of your throat and tap on Kankri's shoulder harshly.

"What is- oh." He turns (with you still seated in his lap) lazily, eyes widening at the sight of what had to be his descendant standing there, slack-jawed.

You bury your face in his neck, shaking, feeling the rapidly cooling cum sticking to your thorax and thighs as your bulge returned to it's sheath. Unbelievable- you came while he _watched_ , but you hear his retreating footsteps before you can think of something to say. Kankri is soothing you with his gentle back-rubbing, cooing to you about how this will be fine, how you'll both find him later to talk, and his tone is so sincere- you almost believe him.


End file.
